Sacred Hoops_Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior

by Phil Jackson

what is essential is invisible to the eye.

  —ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY

  The day after our exit from the playoffs of 1994–95 at the hands of the Orlando Magic, Jerry Krause called a staff meeting and scheduled a meeting of all players for the next day. (The staff of the Bulls includes at critical times Jerry Reinsdorf, who is the acting CEO for the Bulls’ ownership.) We discussed each player on our team, his status, next year’s direction for the Bulls, the upcoming expansion draft and our protected players, the college draft, and the free agents and players around the league that might help us. We spent all day working on a collective effort. It was obvious to us that we needed a power player to help us rebound and defend. And I needed to provide a new direction for the club as I had already envisioned.

  The next day Jerry Krause and I sat down in our conference room and met with each player. First up by seniority was Michael Jordan. M.J. came in without much fanfare and sat down. I asked him if he wanted to come back next season. He said he did, and said he was going to make sure he was ready for the next season even though he had a busy summer planned. He had made sure he could work out wherever he was and whatever he was doing (including the movie contract he’d signed with Warner). Since March, Michael had gone through an emotional roller coaster ride when he had decided to come out of retirement. He wasn’t happy with how the playoffs had ended. He had that look in his eye that said, “I’m going to make somebody pay.” I told him we were going to do everything in our power to provide the team with the type of players that would get us in a position to become champions again. I asked him if he felt he could defend point guards. His eyebrows went up and he said that, if needed, he, Scottie Pippen, or Ronnie Harper could help out on smaller guards. True to his word, Michael spent the summer getting into great shape, both playing ball and doing weight and conditioning workouts.

  One month later, the NBA began a protracted lockout, which barred any business until an agreement was reached between the players and the owners. Our search for players ended before we could really start. During the summer I kept hearing messages from players in L.A. (where Michael was doing the movie) about how hard he was working and how much fun it was to go to his gym and play with the best. I just hoped that, as the management, we would be as prepared for the season as it looked like our team would be.

  During the meeting with the players I had mentioned to Pippen, our second player on the list, how much I liked the way he and M.J. played with Ron Harper. I envisioned starting Michael on guards with Ron and going big—basically changing our defensive philosophy. Scottie liked the idea, but what were we going to do with B.J. Armstrong? I looked at Jerry, who likes to keep things quiet. He volunteered that we would trade B.J. if we could or we would put him on the unprotected segment of the expansion draft, which was upcoming. This was a decision that would be met with a lot of skepticism because of B.J.’s popularity. I felt that if we were to challenge Orlando in the East and become a champion again, our defense would have to improve. By using big guards I felt we would be able to defend without double-teaming post-up players, thereby keeping our defenders “home” on their own men, which is unusual in the NBA. Changing of guards with Ron Harper teaming with Michael Jordan later proved to revitalize Ron’s career and reputation after a disappointing season. It was a daring but gratifying decision.

  The season started for our staff in mid-September as we met and tried to think of a way the Bulls could provide a player to defend and rebound in a big-man role. The free agent market was mighty thin, and we knew that a trade was possibly the only alternative. As a staff, we put together a list of seven players in this league that could help us—all of them in the power forward position. The last and seventh person on the list was Dennis Rodman.

  During the summer Jim Stack, an assistant to Jerry Krause, kept track of the movement of Rodman and his relationship with his team, the San Antonio Spurs. Jim believed the only viable choice we could make for the position we desperately needed filled would be “The Worm.” Much has been made of our acquisition of D. Rodman. But not many people know that his make-up smacks of everything that the director of personnel, Jerry Krause, works to avoid: individualistic vs. team-oriented behavior, unreliability vs. professionalism, etc. We had discussed Dennis before—in fact, Jerry Reinsdorf had asked once if Dennis wasn’t the ideal player for our team. Jerry Krause had adamantly stated he would never ask a coach to put up with a player like Dennis. I liked the Dennis Rodman, who played basketball as a Piston in 1989–91, but I wasn’t sure Dennis hadn’t exhausted his NBA career.

  In two weeks, Dennis Rodman was in Chicago at Jerry’s house and I was walking across the living room to meet him. He had flown in on a private jet from California with his agent, Dwight Manley, and Jack Haley. He sat on the couch wearing sunglasses and a hat. When I walked up to meet him, he stayed seated. I grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet as I shook his hand and said, “Dennis, I know you stand up to shake hands, good to see you.” The conversation didn’t go anywhere with Dennis’s agent, Jack Haley, Dennis, and Jerry Krause in the room. In fact, Dennis didn’t speak until I suggested he and I go out on the patio and talk. When we got out on the patio, I didn’t try to make small talk. All Dennis would respond to was that he wasn’t being paid justly and he might not play at all this season. He was uncommunicative. I quickly told him that that’s not my department; the guy you’ve got to see is Jerry. I walked him back into the living room less than five minutes after we had left, and simply told Jerry that Dennis needed to talk with him because he had money matters on his mind.

  After an evening practice for our minicamp, which consists of free agents and rookies, Dennis and his companions showed up ready to explore the Berto Center and talk. Jerry Krause was busy running around trying to keep Dennis undercover until the free agents had showered and dressed. I went upstairs in our facility and showed Dennis and Jack Haley our offices, then took them into the team room where we show videotape and have our meetings. I asked Jack Haley to give us a few minutes alone.

  Dennis and I sat for a long time in our team room and talked basketball. I wasn’t worried about his ability to make us a better team on paper and during the regular season. What worried me was his continued distractions that caused the Spurs to falter in the playoffs. He countered that it was the pressure of the playoffs on the team and particularly management that created those situations. What about the John Stockton flagrant foul two years ago? He said it all stemmed from an incredible media incident that probably started with the entrance of Madonna and the focus she brought to the situation. He opened up. I told Dennis that I saw him as a selfish defensive player and rebounder, almost an unheard-of term in our game. He argued that he didn’t like to double-team and rotate to help his teammates in overmatched situations. He sarcastically said: “What, like help David Robinson, the Defensive Player of the Year, guard Hakeem-shoot, I can guard him”; so it went. I asked him if he thought he could fit in our offense, which might mean giving up a rebound position, so he could be a part of the system that we run—the sideline triangle. He said he already had visualized how he could work in our system, and he knew where and when M.J. wanted the ball. He said he was sure he could fit in. We talked about communication. He said he had no trouble talking to his teammates about basketball, but he didn’t need to be anybody’s buddy. Then he said, “Half the Spurs players had their balls locked up in the freezer everytime they left the house.” I had to laugh.

  He smiled and looked around and checked out the Native American artifacts on our wall and asked me about them. He told me he had a necklace that was given to him by a Ponca from Oklahoma, and showed me his amulet. I sat for a long spell in silence with Dennis. I felt his presence. To Dennis, words were empty; he had been promised much and been betrayed. He didn’t need words. I felt assured that he could and would play, and that in the crunch he would do his part. We had connected by our hearts in a nonverbal way, the way of the spirit.

  Jerry Krause called
me into his office and asked me if I was satisfied with my meeting with Dennis. I said yes, but I wanted to sleep on it before I could voice my approval, which Jerry insisted on before he would make it happen. More than anyone else, I knew Jerry would be questioned about his decision to acquire Dennis Rodman. After all, how many times had he been quoted as saying that someone was or wasn’t “our kind of people”? How would that go over with the acquisition of Dennis Rodman?

  The next day Jerry and I met with Dennis, and with my approval Jerry told Dennis that we would pursue the trade if and only if he would follow certain guidelines. Jerry asked me to quote our rules—we have ten: be at all games, be present at practices, be on time, ride the team bus, etc. Dennis sat in stone silence while we enumerated the parameters of behavior for him. When I was done, Jerry asked Dennis if he could agree to these points. Dennis simply said; “You won’t have any problem with me and you’ll be getting an NBA championship.” Jerry looked at me and asked if I was satisfied. Satisfied?! I was getting one weird and crazy dude, and I was on my last year of a contract. I said I was, but I needed to concur with Michael and Scottie before the trade to see if the bad blood from the Bad Boys of Detroit was too overwhelming to ignore. It wasn’t, and the trade was made that gave the Chicago Bulls the “Greatest Season Ever.”

  The journey is the reward.

  —CHINESE SAYING

  The immediate reaction to the acquisition of Dennis Rodman was that we would win seventy games. I couldn’t believe the height of expectation. But the Bulls found a rhythm with which to play and win convincingly during the 1995–96 season. I tried very hard to keep the focus of the season on just winning games and not on getting caught up in numbers. I stressed: come to work each day because it is important to do it right; do each action with a conscious effort. That is what we do: chop wood, carry water. We tried to play each play in every game and not to let the game play us.

  The NBA schedule is demanding and exacting. The games are marathons with ebbs and flows that both wilt and energize a team. The obeisance for almost six months to a schedule that has pitfalls and dangers is an awesome undertaking. The importance of winning was found in the effort itself, and it was the ticket to getting the pole position for the playoffs. This set up a perpetual motion of momentum that gave us the right to be the best in the league. We were 12–2 in November, and much of it without an injured Dennis Rodman and with eight games on the road. We won big in December and January—27–1, as the team hit full stride. We cruised into February and had an 18-game winning streak that came to an abrupt halt when Luc Longley was injured and we lost two in a row before the All Star Weekend. In February we lost three games, and there were signs that we might be vulnerable to age and injuries.

  We were trashed by the New York Knicks on March 10 following the firing of Don Nelson. Pip was under duress, and we decided that he had to take off a few games to get his legs and back in good shape. Saturday, March 16, Dennis Rodman did what everyone had been waiting for—he got suspended. He head-butted an official and then made everything worse by defaming the commissioner and the head of officials. Without Scottie and with Dennis on suspension for two weeks—six games—we managed to win through the inspired play of the whole team, the leadership of the incomparable Michael Jordan, and Toni Kukoc, who filled the gap. Well, we lost a game in Toronto to the expansion Raptors but…

  Suddenly it was April and the “seventieth win” was a reality. The night of the seventieth win was in Milwaukee. We had about an hour and fifteen minute drive from our practice facility in Deerfield to the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. On the way there, helicopters from Chicago TV stations followed us. On many overpasses and exits, even into Wisconsin, there were fans encouraging us to win it tonight. They had banners and signs and were dressed in Bulls hats and T-shirts. Cars would pull up alongside the bus and people would lean out the window and take pictures at 65 mph. It was bizarre. I was a bit amused by the whole thing until I saw how many people wanted to identify this night as a historic event in modern sports.

  We won the game, in a manner atypical of the 1995–96 Bulls. We were nervous and tense. It was a game marred by mistakes of trying too hard rather than being sloppy. The game wasn’t decided until the last minute, which made it quite dramatic and worthwhile. We laughed at ourselves in the locker room and congratulated one another. Most of the players echoed my sentiment of “I’m glad that’s over.” On the bus ride home that night with the staff and just a few players, we lit cigars handed out by John Salley and M.J. and enjoyed ourselves immensely as cars went by with flashing lights and honking horns. We finished the season at 72 wins and 10 losses, a rather symmetrical number I think. I could care less if we were ranked as the greatest team ever—we had just had the greatest season ever. What a journey!

  Henceforth we seek not good fortune, we are ourselves good fortune.

  —WALT WHITMAN

  THE PLAYOFFS!

  Nothing can upset my sleep and wither my strength like the do or die situation of the NBA Playoffs. It begins the last weekend of April and if your team’s good and if you’re a lucky coach, you can be sleepless till mid-June. It’s a time to consider all the angles, pull out all the stops, and make it happen. The mind is overstimulated, and one wakes with thoughts and ideas at the crack of dawn and tosses and turns at night thinking about missed opportunities. The process of clearing the mind through meditation is a priceless practice.

  I ask a lot of myself and the team during these months. My wife June has a wonderful way of saying “see you after the playoffs” after the regular season is over. She allows me all the latitude I need to keep myself primed for this challenge. If it means waking up at 5:30 A.M. and going to work at 7:00 A.M., or getting me the space and time for an afternoon siesta, or keeping our social calendar clear for that period, she does it. She knows I need to stay on track, because there is no room for errors during the playoffs.

  Three years ago, after Michael retired, the Bulls had a wonderful season even though.... At the end of that season June surprised me with a BMW R100 bike—my personal gift as her Coach of the Year. I have a 1972 750cc BMW in Montana and we love to ride two-up out West in the glory of the mountains of Montana. This new bike is now our escape toy that allows us to get away on a nice morning or evening and ride through the countryside of northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. In the spring of 1996 it was a rare morning or evening when we could go for a ride—our free time dictated both by work and weather.

  I ask for the same dedication of extra work and high focus from the Bulls’ players as I do from myself. We do an inordinate amount of video work during the playoffs. It is my belief that teams who can visualize and be flexible to make changes during the playoffs can win championships. We have a system of offense during the playoffs that can be fine-tuned to defensive adjustments that our opponents might make from game to game or even during a game. We also have a variety of defensive options that we use on post play or screen/rolls that we can tinker with and adjust. A lot of times players can visualize the necessary change, hear what is needed, but their bodily reactions can’t adjust. Instincts (habits) are hard to break, so we must also put our players through the physical act of making the adjustment until the repetition replaces the instinct. It takes time, and fortunately our team was a mature group who really knew what had to be done. The team with the greatest dedication, desire, and single-minded effort, ends up winning.

  The teams we had to go through during the 1996 playoffs were the Miami Heat, the New York Knicks, the Orlando Magic, and the representative of the West, which turned out to be the Seattle Supersonics. We knew that each team could play very well against us and each of these teams had beaten us once during the regular season. They also represented a challenge to our big men with dominant centers. Beyond the technical terms of basketball, the specific challenge for our team was to realize the pivotal point of each team. What were our opponents’ weaknesses and how could we exploit them to break down their confidence
and collective esprit de corps? Conversely, how could we strengthen our weakest link in our own group?

  In looking back at my journal, I find an entry about the Friday, April 27, game versus the Miami Heat. “I wokeup this morning extremely anxious about the first game of this playoffs. We had a week off to prepare for this game, but I’m always unsure of how prepared we’ll be.” We were ready if a bit nervous about the first game of the playoffs. I taped the quotation from Walt Whitman about good fortune on the lockers before the game. They needed to know that by winning 72 games they had established their own “good luck.”

  We had some trouble stopping the Heat and particularly Tim Hardaway. In the first half, we were tied at 54. Timmy had 26 of their first-half points. The second half turned into a rout as two players, Alonzo Mourning and Chris Gatling, were ejected. Pat Riley finally had enough and was himself thrown out. We won, and I breathed a sigh of relief. It turned out to be the best half the Heat would play in the five game series, which we won in three. We made adjustments with experienced players and the Heat didn’t have the chemistry with their newly formed nucleus to make the same response. The biggest adjustment we made during the series was to put Ron Harper on Tim Hardaway and Michael on Rex Chapman.

  The movie that I used for entertainment purposes during this series was Friday with Ice Cube. It has lots of comic relief and bathroom humor. The message that comes through is don’t get caught up in retaliation, i.e., an eye for an eye, etc., yet don’t back down. You can take a moral stand. In our dealings with a Riley-coached defensive team, we needed that message. Dennis Rodman would be challenged with physical take-out tactics that forced him to keep his cool. In Sunday’s game, Dennis fell into the trap and was thrown out of the game, much to my disappointment. Actually D-Rod, my courtboard moniker for Dennis, got his second technical for grabbing the arm of Alonzo Mourning and preventing a shot after the whistle. Even though it wasn’t a flagrant act, it wasn’t necessary. We were up 27 points at the time and I think Dennis, the enforcer, was feeling like he didn’t really have a challenge and created one. Dennis was at the scorer’s table waiting to check in the game when a Miami player physically challenged Michael while he was in the air at the basket. To the novice and probably to the referee it didn’t look like anything more than a hard foul on a drive, but to the people who know, M.J. had to correct his balance in the air because of Askin’s late attack. Michael still managed to deliver the blow and keep his balance. Words and looks were exchanged and Dennis picked up the mood and gave his version of tit for tat two plays later. The league’s refs were ever vigilant around D-Rod and he was gone. After that game, Dennis found his equilibrium for the playoffs. I became more direct with him about what I wanted him to do when he was in the game. He knew he had to play for us to win.